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Non-verbal cues to deception and their relationship toterrorismBook SectionHow to cite:

Eubanks, D. L.; Zhang, K. and Frumkin, L. (2015). Non-verbal cues to deception and their relationship toterrorism. In: Stedmon, A. and Lawson, G. eds. Hostile intent and counter terrorism: Human factors theory andapplication. Ashgate, pp. 75–92.

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Running head: NONVERBAL CUES TO DECEPTION AND TERRORISM 1

Chapter 5: Nonverbal Cues to Deception and Their Relationship to Terrorism

Dawn L. Eubanks

Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Ke Zhang

Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Lara A. Frumkin

School of Psychology, University of East London

Keywords: Nonverbal cues, Deception, Terrorism

Eubanks, D.L., Zhang, K. & Frumkin, L.A. (2015). Non-verbal cues to deception and their relationship to terrorism. In A Stedmon & G Lawson (Ed.), Hostile intent and counter

terrorism: Human factors theory and application (pp. 75-92). UK: Ashgate.


Introduction

The desire to detect deception has existed as long as act of deception and both have been

pursued across generations in an attempt to gain an advantage over another. While the precise

motives and nature may differ (i.e. strategic advantage in battle or business, maintaining

positive relations with a lover we have wronged, sparing a friend hurt feelings) the desire to

deceive and detect this deception remains constant. For this reason, vast amounts of research

time and money have been poured into this topic in order to gain a better understanding of the

nature of deception (e.g. DePaulo, et al., 2003; O’Brien, 2008). While we have learned a

great deal, there are still many mysteries associated with deception. The main areas that have

been pursued in the study of deception include verbal and nonverbal cues (including speech

tone, speed, pitch, body and facial movements). The purpose of this review is to outline the

progress of research related to the use of nonverbal cues in deception detection within the

specific context of terrorist activities. Conducting research in this area is a challenge because

of the fortunate rarity of terrorist events. However, relying on our understanding of cognitive

processes and extrapolating from other situations, we can begin to understand how nonverbal

cues work in a terrorist domain.

In this review, we will outline four main areas: 1) Why is nonverbal behaviour important

in studying deception? 2) What are the main findings about nonverbal behaviour and

deception? 3) What are the challenges of studying nonverbal behaviour and deception? 4)

What are the future paths for exploring research in the topic of nonverbal behaviour and

deception?

The majority of interactions we have with people are truthful in nature so we have an

inherent tendency to trust (DePaulo et al., 1996; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998). However, every

day individuals engage in many lies that are generally harmless. Unfortunately there are some

acts of deceit that can have dire consequences. Deception can be used to swindle someone


out of his or her fortune, cause emotional damage or physical harm. Deception is one of the

main tactics that can be used by terrorists to make attack plans ‘invisible’ until the actual

incident (Caddell, 2004; Godson & Wirtz, 2000; Hoffman & McCormick, 2004; Jessee,

2006; Moore, 1997), and therefore requires systematic investigation from researchers. It has

been contended by the Security Service (MI5) that "terrorism presents a serious and sustained

threat to the United Kingdom and UK interests abroad" ("Terrorism," 2012). In recent years,

terror attacks have become more strategic than before, and terrorists are deploying new

techniques and tactics in the processes of realising their plans (Jessee, 2006; Seib & Janbek,

2011; Victoroff, 2005).

Definitions

For the purpose of this review, nonverbal behaviour includes anything that takes the

form of a gesture or physical movement. Other research has included speech tone, speed or

pitch as a nonverbal behaviour, but that is beyond the scope of the current review. Here we

are particularly interested in what would allow an individual to detect deception purely

through visual cues.

There are many ways of defining the term deception and many characteristics may be

adapted to feature deception behaviour in relation to terrorism. Krauss (1981) and other

researchers (Zuckerman, DePaulo, & Rosenthal, 1981, p. 3) have defined deception as “an

act that is intended to foster in another person a belief or understanding which the deceiver

considers to be false”. Burgoon and Buller (1994, pp. 155-156) later defined deception as “a

deliberate act perpetrated by a sender to engender in a receiver beliefs contrary to what the

sender believes is true to put the receiver at a disadvantage”; this emphasises the resulting

disadvantage of the receiver, due to deception. More recently, Vrij (2008, p. 15) has defined

deception as “a successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create

in another a belief which the communicator considers to be untrue”. In the context of


terrorism, we would expect deception to include for example concealment or creating an

impression of being in a place for another purpose other than the true intention.

Nonverbal Behaviour, Deception and Terrorism

Before we explore deception and its relation to terrorism in greater detail, it is

essential to understand what specific role nonverbal deception serves in terrorist attacks.

Deception, as a deliberate activity, is employed as a tactic in terrorism activity from the pre-

attack planning to the post-attack cover-up stage. It is firstly a crucial component of the pre-

attack stage. For example, terrorists need to covertly collect and test information/material

required for the attack and sometimes they use fake identities to do so (Jessee, 2006). Both

covert and feigning activities are deception. Deception is not only used in hostile

reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, but on the day of the execution of the attack,

deception is also needed (Jessee, 2006; O’Brien, 2008). Terrorists need to use fake identities

in order to pass security checks; such a deception is not easy to detect. According to the

commission report of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (U.S. National Commission on Terrorist

Attacks Upon the United States, 2004), airport security workers were unable to recall

anything out of the ordinary regarding the terrorists. It would appear that they looked like

‘normal’ passers-by. This may well be due to the fact that these terrorists, mostly trained

prior to the attacks (e.g., Horgan, 2005; Shane, 2009), were skilled at using deception

techniques such as concealing and falsifying their real intentions, emotions and identities on

the day of the event (Portera, Juodisb, Leanne, Kleinb, & Wilsonb, 2009). Furthermore, at the

post-attack stage, deception is used if a terrorist needs to leave the scene of the attack without

being identified. In the longer term, terrorists utilize deception in their signalling strategies,

so as to “enhance their freedom of action” with regard to their targets (Bowyer, 1982;

Hoffman & McCormick, 2004). The above is an example of how terrorists might use


deception as a mechanism at all points in planning, executing and exiting the act. Table 1

summarises possible deception tasks by stage of the attack.

Identifying behavioural cues and understanding their underlying cognitive or emotional

processes may help to identify terrorists, from the pre-attack stage. This is considered as one

of the crucial strategies that may be applied in order to detect terrorism in advance of a

catastrophe, and in addition, to help people understand how terrorists may plan and carry out

attacks.

In many areas where there is a potential security threat, security checkpoints will be

established. This allows security officials a chance to observe behavioural and verbal cues in

a systematic manner. However, frequently, if there is no checkpoint in place, for example in

open spaces such as shopping centres, security officials must rely purely on visual cues to

identify suspicious individuals. While there is clearly a range of expertise in observing cues

based on experience and skill, it is important to understand how these individuals can assess

nonverbal cues that can indicate someone may be acting in a deceptive manner – i.e. the

deceiver’s intentions are not what they immediately appear to be.

Behavioural Cues to Deception

Observers are often inclined to attend to nonverbal behaviour because there is an

assumption that it is more difficult to control nonverbal behaviour (DePaulo, Rosenthal,

Eisenstat Rogers & Finkelstein, 1978; Hale and Stiff, 1990; Kalbfleisch, 1992; Maxwell,

Cook & Burr, 1985; Stiff, Hale, Garlick & Rogan, 1990; Vrij, Dragt & Koppelaar, 1992).

Therefore observers believe that it is more likely that a deceiver will ‘leak’ the information

they are trying to hide through their nonverbal cues (Vrij, 2000).

In some instances there may not be both verbal and nonverbal cues to rely upon, but it

the nonverbal behaviour and speech content are discrepant. When this happens, individuals

tend to emphasise nonverbal cues. For example, a job applicant that appears reserved but


claims to be excited about the job will be perceived as less enthusiastic about the job than he

or she reports (DePaulo, et al., 1978; Hale & Stiff, 1990; Zuckerman, Driver, & Koestner,

1982; Zuckerman, Speigel, DePaulo, & Rosenthal, 1982). In sum, we are used to drawing

inferences about a person based on nonverbal behaviour (Vrij et al., 2010). This is

particularly troublesome because in a recent deception detection experiment, researchers

found that nonverbal cues, particularly visual ones, decrease the accuracy rate of deception

detectors compared to those relying on only audio information (Burgoon, Blair, & Strom,

2008).

DePaulo and Kirkendol (1989) and Vrij (1996) identify at least four reasons why we

rely more on nonverbal cues than verbal cues. First, there are automatic links between

emotions and nonverbal behaviours and these automatic links do not exist between emotions

and speech content. These automatic links make it difficult to remove emotion from

nonverbal behaviours – thus the leaks that occur when we are under stress. Second, we have

more practice in using words than behaviour to convey a message. This allows us to be more

adept at changing our words rather than behaviours in order to deceive. Third, because words

are more important than behaviour in conveying a message, we become more aware of the

words we are using than the accompanying gestures. This focus upon words rather than

behaviours allows our true feelings or intentions to leak out through our behaviours. Finally,

we cannot stop the nonverbal messages being transmitted. We can stop speaking, but our

body language is always conveying a message. This is an advantage for those skilled in

reading nonverbal communication since there is a constant monologue to attend to.

Approaches to Deception

When trying to detect deception, the idea that there is one universal behavioural cue

that people exhibit when they are lying is simply untrue (DePaulo et al., 2003; Masip, Sporer,

Garrido, & Herrero, 2005; Sporer & Schwandt, 2006, 2007; Vrij, 2005). In other words there


is nothing like Pinocchio’s nose. However, we are not without hope in trying to detect

deception. According to DePaulo et al. (2003), there are 23 verbal and nonverbal indicators

of deception, i.e. cues to deception, which showed significant effects in a meta-analysis

study. However, many conflicting results indicate that no single cue can be confidently used

to detect deception, due to the inconsistent pattern that cues present in deceivers (Vrij, 2008).

There are some behaviours that are more likely to occur when an individual is being

deceptive versus not deceptive (Vrij, Granhag, & Porter, 2010). It is here that we focus our

attention. There are three main processes involved in conducting deception: the emotional

approach, the cognitive effort approach and the attempted behavioural control approach as

described in The Multi-Factor Model (Zuckerman et al., 1981) and later described by Vrij

(2000; 2008). These processes have been tested by many others, and researchers have

subsequently suggested supporting evidence for these processes which will be introduced in

the following three sections together with discussion of how such processes relate to

terrorism activity.

The emotional approach

There are three types of emotion associated with deception: fear, guilt and excitement

(Ekman, 1985). These common aspects of emotion may occur simultaneously or separately,

and contribute to the complexity of deception behaviour. Ekman and Frank (1993) have

proposed a series of determinants that influence the feeling of fear during deception: the first

is the liar’s beliefs about the target’s skill in detecting lies. Thus, liars facing lay people might

feel less fear than when facing security officers, since they know that security officers are

likely to be trained to detect deception. The second determinant is concerned with the liar’s

deception skills and preparation to deceive. When a liar is skilled or well prepared, they

might feel less fear when lying, compared to those who are not skilled or well prepared.

Many terrorists have experience conducting attacks (Pedahzur, Perliger, & Weinberg, 2003)


or at least, involvement in related training (Bowyer, 1982; Hoffman & McCormick, 2004).

This might explain why they experience less fear than other liars. Thirdly, liars’ feelings

about punishment are related to fear. Also individuals may feel more fear when the stakes are

high (Vrij, 2000). However, even though the stakes are high for terrorists, it is rare to find

ones who fear punishment (Kippenberg & Seidensticker, 2006). Nonetheless, some terrorists

do fear the unsuccessful execution of their mission, and this relates to their failure of

fulfilling their strong political, religious or psychological purposes (e.g., Hoffman, 2006;

Victoroff & Kruglanski, 2009; Whittaker, 2007). These factors that influence the emotion of

fear could, at least to some degree, influence terrorists’ behaviour while engaging in

deception.

Guilt is another emotion that relates to deception. In line with Ekman’s (1985)

proposition about guilt, perhaps deceivers who hold different social values to that of the

target, for example Al-Qaeda who see the western world as the enemy, are inclined to show

less guilt when being deceptive in attacks. In addition, liars feel less guilty when their targets

are anonymous than when they are known (Ekman & Frank, 1993), perhaps making it easier

for liars (terrorists) to operate in situations where the targets (the public) are generally

anonymous. Moreover, the strength of guilt is related to the difference between the liar’s gain

and the target’s loss (Ekman & Frank, 1993). In terms of deception in general, liars normally

feel a stronger sense of guilt when a stronger disadvantage to the target is perceived.

However, terrorists are inclined to regard innocent people as ‘justified’ targets according to

their own definition of ‘enemy’ (Hoffman, 2006), and thus are not disturbed by the loss of

their ‘enemy’. These characteristics might explain why terrorists lack the presence of guilt

(Hare & Cox, 1978; Post, 2007).

In spite of having negative feelings, liars may feel positive emotions such as excitement

when lying. They may also feel relief and pride in their sense of achievement afterwards


(Ekman, 1985; Ekman & Frank, 1993). This feeling of delight may be enhanced when liars

feel challenged, or when there are audiences for their acts (Ekman, 1985; Ekman & Frank,

1993). Correspondingly, deception during terrorist attacks is a significant challenge and

accomplishment for terrorists; committing the attack fulfils deception that involves a large

“audience” (the public). This might result in positive feelings while conducting terrorism-

related deception.

Although there is no evidence to show that terrorism-related deception will involve

fewer emotions, terrorists who are normally trained before their mission might be aware of

the need to conceal signs of emotions (Horgan, 2005; Kippenberg & Seidensticker, 2006). In

addition, the strength of emotional feelings and their effect on building up deception

behaviour may also be moderated by other individual and contextual factors.

The cognitive effort approach

Lying sometimes requires extra mental and cognitive effort (Vrij, 2008). Indeed, since

liars need to formulate lies they may be pre-occupied by the need to remember to play their

role and they must also pay particular attention to their behaviour whilst monitoring the

reaction of their targets. In addition, deliberate efforts to balance the conflict between lies and

truth in an individual’s mind places cognitive demands upon liars (e.g., Walczyk, Roper,

Seemann, & Humphrey, 2003; Walczyk et al., 2005). This has been demonstrated in several

studies (Vrij, Leal, Granhag, Mann, Fisher, Hillman, & Sperry, 2009; Vrij, Mann, Fisher,

Leal, Milne, & Bull, 2008). Specifically, cognitive complexity can lead to fewer hand and

arm movements and increased gaze aversion (Ekman, 1997; Ekman & Friesen, 1972).

Cognitive load is related to neglect of body language and eye contact with a conversation

partner and can act as a distracter when concentrating on a cognitively demanding task. These

phenomena are supported by evidence given by neuroimaging studies (e.g., Carrión, Keenan,

& Sebanz, 2010; Kozel et al., 2005; also see the review in Abe, 2011).


Vrij, et al, (2010) outlined six reasons for why lying can be more cognitively

demanding than truth telling. To start, thinking of a convincing lie may be cognitively

demanding. Second, because liars do not take their credibility for granted, they must expend

effort in acting “believable” (DePaulo et al., 2003; Kassin, 2005; Kassin, Appleby, & Perillo,

2010; Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004; Kassin & Norwick, 2004). Third, because liars are

concerned with appearing credible, they must monitor the reactions of those with whom they

are interacting (Buller & Burgoon, 1996; Schweitzer, Brodt, & Croson, 2002). Fourth, liars

have to remind themselves to maintain a façade that requires cognitive effort (DePaulo et al.,

2003). Fifth, not only do liars need to generate a lie and maintain it, they must also suppress

the truth from emerging (Spence et al., 2001). Finally, activating a lie requires mental effort

due to the associated intentionality, while the truth generally flows forward automatically.

(Gilbert, 1991; Walczyk et al., 2003; Walczyk et al., 2005).

A study conducted by Carrión et al. (2010) where participants lied and told the truth

with or without deceptive intentions found that the most difficult part of telling a convincing

lie was in handling the cognitive conflict resulting from the need to keep alert to others’

mental states and reactions while deceiving them. While most terrorism-related lies are

relatively straightforward to formulate and terrorists are normally trained in advance (Jessee,

2006), a high cognitive demand on terrorists arises from the need to monitor reactions from

targets, paying special attention to their behaviour, and overcoming the conflict between truth

in their mind and the deception they are performing. In addition, although information from

intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) (O'Brien, 2008) is gathered prior to the

attack, terrorists may still experience cognitive load when recalling information and engaging

in the attack.

A crucial factor that influences deception behaviour is that of stakes, insofar as it refers

to the perceived consequences of successful and unsuccessful attempts at deception (Ekman


& Frank, 1993). The fact that the stakes are high can also have an influence on cognitive

load, thus influencing emotion, cognitive effort and attempted behavioural control. Although

high-stakes deception happens in everyday life, the consequence of terrorists’ deception is

usually more severe. For example, terrorists planning threats to public security are faced with

skilled lie-catchers, and they will normally perceive the stake of severe consequences if

caught. For example, the high risk to religious terror groups if detected would prevent them

from realising their self-sacrifice (Post, Sprinzak, & Denny, 2003) and could result in harm to

their, or their family’s, social status in their group (e.g., Kuznar & Lutz, 2007; Silke, 2003).

The attempted behavioural control approach

Those engaging in deception continually monitor their audience and adjust their

behaviours accordingly (Burgoon & Buller, 1994). Early theories such as Interpersonal

Deception Theory (IDT) (Buller & Burgoon, 1996; Burgoon & Buller, 1994) proposed that

liars might adjust their behaviour by monitoring the reaction of their targets (Burgoon et al.,

2008; Burgoon, Buller, & Floyd, 2001) or by monitoring their targets’ suspicions. Before this

point, deception was not viewed as an interaction but as an individual act by one person. It is

likely that such behavioural adjustment happens more when interpersonal interaction occurs

(Burgoon, Buller, Ebesu, White, & Rockwell, 1996). For this reason, dialogue rather than

monologue is advantageous when the goal is to deceive. In terms of terrorist attacks, the

occurrence of interpersonal interaction depends on the specific task of the deception and the

stage of the attack. For example, in some cases terrorists only need to walk in the public

space and make sure they are not doubted by the public or security officers (no interaction is

involved), whereas sometimes they need to talk to security officers while passing the security

check (interaction is involved). Moreover, the IDT perspective provides an explanation of

deceivers’ increase in cognitive load and how self-monitoring leads to attempted behavioural

control.


Perceiving, monitoring and communicating with targets helps liars deceive successfully

(e.g., Burgoon et al., 2008; Burgoon et al., 2001). Notably, in order to appear honest or

normal, liars may attempt to control their behaviour during deception. Some evidence shows

that liars may try to exhibit behaviours they believe are credible, such as trying to behave

positively, and in a friendly fashion, to convince their targets of their honesty (DePaulo et al.,

2003). However, such deliberate self-regulation sometimes makes liars seem over-controlled

(Vrij, 2008). The attempted behavioural control is an essential strategy for terrorism-related

deception, as terrorists normally try their best to “blend in”, so as to reduce attention from the

public or security officers (Shane, 2009). There is also information regarding behavioural

control that states that individuals should not show signs of confusion or tension, but to smile,

be bright and confident, as seen in the Attackers’ Spiritual Manual (Kippenberg &

Seidensticker, 2006). It can be inferred that terrorists are seeking to give a positive

impression to the receivers of their deception.

This idea of regulating behaviour was discussed in DePaulo’s (1992) self-presentation

theory that emphasises the possibility that in some cases, a truth teller may experience similar

cognitive processes of deception compared with a liar and regulate his or her behaviour. For

example, a truth teller may also experience the emotion of fear when he or she perceives the

negative consequence of not being believed (Ofshe & Leo, 1997) that might lead to the

presence of similar behaviour as those who are actually deceiving. In other words, there are

many reasons a person may want to regulate his or her nonverbal behaviour. DePaulo et al.’s

(2003) proposition reveals the dilemma of detecting terrorism-related deception, as some

innocent people may also perform deception-like behaviour when they are nervous or the

stakes are high. Yet terrorists are well trained to behave as normally as possible, in order not

to be detected. This complicates the process of detecting deception in the counterterrorism

field.


Through attempts to control behaviour, there have been studies that have identified

reduction in hand movements in particular (Vrij, Akehurst, & Morris, 1997; Vrij & Winkel,

1991). One explanation given for this is that there is an increase in cognitive load during

deception due to the fact that liars not only have to deceive the other but also have to try to

promote a credible impression. A second explanation is that they realize they are under

increased scrutiny and in order not to be caught they reduce their body movements and focus

on their script (Vrij, Akehurst, & Morris, 1997).

Findings and Challenges

Out of all the nonverbal cues that have been identified, only a handful consistently

emerged across studies. In fact, in many instances there are blatant contradictions in what

nonverbal cues indicate deception (Miller & Stiff, 1992). This may be because each

individual differs in how he or she expresses him or herself when lying or anxious for

example (Miller & Stiff, 1992). It is important to state that there are behaviours that may

indicate that an individual is being deceptive, but they do not necessarily mean that they are

lying. It may mean that an individual realizes that they look suspicious and this creates a

degree of discomfort and unnaturalness about them (Vrij, 2000). Also, many of the cues

identified as being related to deception will only be displayed if an individual is experiencing

fear, guilt or excitement. If the lie is easy to fabricate then the behavioural cues to deception

are unlikely to be displayed. It is for these reasons that detecting deception is incredibly

difficult.

Having said that, there is some hope in identifying deceptive individuals. A meta-

analysis including 120 studies and 158 cues to deception demonstrated that most behaviours

are only weakly related to deception, if at all (DePaulo et al., 2003; see also DePaulo &

Morris, 2004). Rather than looking for specific cues to deception, general impressions of a

person are stronger predictors of accurate deception judgment (Hartwig & Bond Jr., 2011). In


general, compared to truth tellers, deceivers appear to be more tense, such as having a higher

pitched voice, presenting increased pauses and longer latency periods while lying, and

decreases in hand and finger movements, leg and foot movements, and illustrators (hand and

arm movements supporting speech) (Vrij, 2008). Deceivers may also respond faster and in a

less straightforward way to the content of their statements, and may also provide more

negative statements (Vrij, 2008).

Training to detect deceptive behaviour appears to be more effective when it focuses

upon more global impressions such as looking for more tension (specifically more fidgeting)

than when it does not. Similarly, looking for impressions of ”less sense” (less logical, more

discrepant); “less fluent” (more speech disturbances/word repetitions); and “less

forthcoming” (shorter speaking duration, fewer details) improved training effectiveness,

although these differences are not significant. However, there is little difference in training

effectiveness for the cue less engaged (i.e. fewer illustrators). Taking the sum of these

findings, this may mean that overall perceptions are more accurate predictors of deception

than a specific nonverbal behaviour (Driskell, 2011).

Some evidence has demonstrated differences in emotional displays shown by liars and

truth-tellers (Ekman & O’Sullivan, 2006). For example differences in micro-expressions have

been investigated to distinguish liars and truth-tellers through these “leaked emotions”. These

micro-expressions are difficult to detect and often need to rely on slowed down visual

displays in order to identify them.

As mentioned above, the occurrence of deception cues depends on the experience of

cognitive processes, thus, the context in which a liar deceives will directly influence his or

her behaviour. Cues to deception are more likely to be present when individuals are

motivated to deceive than when there is little or no consequence attached to their

performance (DePaulo et al., 2003, Driskell, 2011, Levine, Feeley, McCornack, Hughes, &


Harms, 2005). Accordingly, terrorism-related deceptions might show verbal and nonverbal

cues in terms of stress or cognitive effort and might also feature more behavioural control

when compared with deception in general. In addition, terrorists are trained to behave in a

‘normal’ way, so as to arouse less attention. This may also result in more controlled

behaviour. Detecting terrorists is not as easy as ‘spotting’ suspicious individuals from the

general public by following a checklist of cues to deception. Similar behaviour from both

liars and truth tellers further increases the difficulty of spotting liars, and terrorists are even

harder to detect on account of their apparent ‘normality’.

Knowing that a reliable cue to deception does not exist presents us with a much more

complex puzzle embedded in individual differences and contextual nuances. However it is

still important to improve our ability to detect deception. The question is that if there are no

reliable cues to distinguish between truth tellers and liers, then what is the purpose of this

training? In fact, some authors have pointed out that deception detection training may be

misleading and counterproductive if it is focused upon cues that do not actually distinguish

between liars and truth tellers (Kassin & Fong, 1999). Because of the inherent weaknesses in

the predictive nature of behavioural cues to deception, it may be more pertinent to focus upon

intuitive notions about deception. It may be that increasing the behavioural differences

between liars and truth tellers is a better way to arm security officials to detect deception

rather than by looking for specific cues to deception (Hartwig & Bond, 2011).

Stereotypes

As Vrij et al (2010), state in their review article, there are many stereotypes that

people hold about nonverbal cues that a liar will exhibit. Some common beliefs are that liars

will act nervously, exhibit gaze aversion (‘‘liars look away’’) and display grooming gestures

(‘‘liars fidget’’) (Strömwall, Granhag, & Hartwig, 2004; Taylor & Hick, 2007; The Global

Deception Team, 2006; Vrij, 2008; Vrij, Akehurst, & Knight, 2006). Some evidence suggests


that gaze aversion may be related to a way to manage cognitive load. For example, an

experiment with 8-year old children found that children did avert their gaze when engaged in

pedagogical question and answer sessions. This may have been related to social factors.

However the main function found for averting gaze is in cognitive load management when

processing information (Doherty-Sneddon & Phelps, 2005). The challenge here is to identify

when a person is averting gaze because they are concentrating on something honestly versus

engaging in deceit. A problem with using cognitive load as a proxy for identifying deception

is that not every person engaging in deceit will experience cognitive load in the same way.

Research has shown that these cues commonly thought to be associated with lying are in fact

not related. In particular, liars do not seem to exhibit the behavioural cues of gaze aversion

and fidgeting (Vrij & Mann, 2001). For more details about people’s beliefs about behavioural

cues to deception see DePaulo, (1992); DePaulo, Stone, and Lassiter (1985); Vrij, (1998);

Zuckerman and Driver, (1985); Zuckerman, Driver, and Guadagno, (1981).

It appears that multiple sources of information can assist in identifying when an

individual is engaging in deception. In fact, the best-validated cues to deception are verbal

and nonverbal cues to be considered together that include: illustrators, blink and pause rate,

speech rate, vague descriptions, repeated details, contextual embedding, reproduction of

conversations, and emotional ‘leakage’ in the face (Porter & ten Brinke, 2010). In a study by

Blair, Levine, and Shaw (2010), they found that the mean accuracy of groups receiving

contextual information was 21% higher than the accuracies reported in the Bond and DePaulo

(2006) meta-analysis. This clearly demonstrates the importance of context when trying to

determine whether a person is acting in a deceptive manner. Perhaps once we clearly move

away from the search for a reliable behavioural cue we will begin to open our eyes to the

complexity involved in detecting deception. It is a combination of science and intuitions


grounded in experience and general impressions that may help us get closer to detecting a

deceptive individual.

Conclusion

In conclusion, identifying nonverbal cues to deception is clearly an important but

challenging task. While we understand that there is no one reliable cue indicating deception,

we need to delve into the complex task of identifying pairings of cues (verbal and nonverbal)

that are indicative of deception. We have come a long way in understanding what drives a

person to display certain cues when being deceptive, however this is unreliable because these

cues are also present in other situations (e.g. when someone is anxious, nervous, lost). Future

studies need to continue down the path of exploring combinations of cues to see if we can

pinpoint a deceptive “look” more generally rather than looking for one particular cue. Once

we begin to understand what drives these intuitions about a person being deceptive or not, we

can once again begin to put science back into deception detection rather than appearing to

simply rely on one’s gut.


Table 1

Terrorist activities that may involve deception

Note. These activities that may involve deception are partially adopted from the identified

crucial issues of terrorist attack proposed by (Horgan, 2005) and (Jessee, 1996).

Stage of attack Possible deception task

Pre-attack Information/material collection and testing, financing, communication,

travelling, locating and supporting for training.

Event execution Passing the security operations, keeping out of the public eye, and

securing weapons pre-attack.

Post-attack Escaping from the attack scene and securing weapons post-attack if

appropriate, destruction of evidence, and securing the terrorist

organisation if caught.


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